My Interpretation of “Air on a G String” by Johann Sebastian Bach.

Contrary its sporty sounding title (how could the composer have possibly known?), the composition itself communicates a sadness to me.

When I listen to it, I get mental video stream of a person (the protagonist’s role in my vision isn’t gender-specific) wandering aimlessly through a darkened woodland area, and happening upon a clearing of some sort. S/he stops to rest on a rock…or maybe at the base of a tree… and starts to reflect upon a lost love.

The piece imparts a particularly deep and hopeless sense of mourning to me, so I’m picturing that maybe the loved one had died before s/he had made his/her feelings known. I picture this person putting his/her face in his/her hands and, finally being able to let his/her guard down in the privacy of the lonely woods, quietly allowing the mask to crumble, and the tears to flow freely. I’m getting that this person is enveloped by a profound and almost debilitating feeling of heartbreak, yet is trying to suppress it somehow.

It really is a beautiful piece. Quite moving.